Our View: PAYT protesters air their grievances

Wednesday

Aug 6, 2014 at 6:30 PMAug 7, 2014 at 2:20 PM

There was a whole lot of trash talk at Government Center on Tuesday evening. It's not often that a grassroots protest brings more than a handful of people to picket city hall, but the enactment of pay-as-you-throw and the unilateral manner in which it was implemented by the Flanagan administration clearly hit a nerve for the 40 or so protesters who decided to deliver the message that PAYT stinks.

Herald News Editorial Board

There was a whole lot of trash talk at Government Center on Tuesday evening. It’s not often that a grassroots protest brings more than a handful of people to picket city hall, but the enactment of pay-as-you-throw and the unilateral manner in which it was implemented by the Flanagan administration clearly hit a nerve for the 40 or so protesters who decided to deliver the message that PAYT stinks.

During the colorful protest Tuesday, featuring purple trash bags and slogans like “Hell No We Won’t Throw,” picketers protested the PAYT program. Many also called for Mayor Will Flanagan’s recall. However, not everyone opposing PAYT thinks its implementation rises to the level of a mayoral recall.

While the recall effort — led by the same small group that was thwarted in its efforts to mount a recall campaign in 2012 — may not be seen as a credible campaign, Flanagan’s dismissal of the legitimate complaints they are airing is only adding fuel to the fire.

In some ways, though, the organizers are shooting themselves in the foot. If they want to be taken seriously and lead a viable recall movement, they have to act more credibly. Shock value may get attention, but it does not earn respect or support. The more outrageous their behavior, the more Flanagan is able to dismiss legitimate grievances as being those of extremists on the fringes of public opinion.

It’s no wonder frustration has been building. Flanagan hastily instituted the plan unilaterally — after pledging in the last mayoral campaign that he opposed PAYT. While the city’s fiscal circumstances had certainly changed between the campaign and the time Flanagan announced the program in May, he never sought to convince the council of the plan’s necessity. The public never had an opportunity to weigh in on PAYT to their elected representatives. The result was the raucous protest that occurred Tuesday.

But the council should not be let off the hook for PAYT, either. After all, the council abdicated its legislative authority when it held hearings on a variety of trash disposal proposals, but refused to decide which option it preferred or even advocate for alternatives, simply deferring to the mayor’s decision. With the exceptions of Councilor Daniel Rego, who voted no, and Councilor Linda Pereira, who was recovering from surgery, the council voted to adopt the budget, which was built upon the $3.5 million in PAYT revenue.

However, Flanagan only added insult to injury last week with his administration’s sudden introduction of a host of excessive regulations and fees associated with private trash haulers that do business in the city. Despite the loud protests from a wide range of constituents, those concerns fell on deaf ears and the regulations were approved by the appointed Board of Health, without giving the people a say through their elected city councilors.

If those mounting the recall effort want to be taken seriously, they should stick to the facts — which speak for themselves — without lobbing outlandish allegations and hyperbole.

While citizens have every right to mount a recall campaign and hold elected officials accountable, their time may be better spent drafting and laying the groundwork for a viable mayoral challenger and more effective — and electable — city councilors, rather than wasting time, money and effort on a costly, and likely futile, recall election.

Meanwhile, if Flanagan wants to maintain his own credibility and governing mandate, avoid a messy recall campaign and remain in power, he really ought to begin mending fences with the City Council and the public and build consensus, rather than finding ways to subvert the democratic process and the will of the people.

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